Phillip O’Brien has worked at our emergency shelter for 16 years. He describes his work with some of our older service users, the importance of time and patience and how his values align with those of Cork Simon.

"For me personally, I do find, my speciality if you like, would be working with some of the older drinkers. And older is anything above 40 in this line of work.

It’s about building up trust. It’s about building a safer space because many have had to survive their whole life, you know, horrendous upbringings, terrible childhoods, and they’ve had to fight for everything in life.

And those are very, very hard walls and barriers to try and get through. So, it's just bit by bit, working slowly but at a constant pace. And a little bit of patience goes a long way.”

Phillip talks about the value of time and patience ….